The history of Rikers Island is a century-long narrative of devastation, torture, and inhumanity. Its impact reaches much farther than the East River. It is, in every way, a history of New York City: its communities, its families, its government, and its history of resistance, which is as long as the history of Rikers itself. A book-length history of Rikers has never graced library shelves or been a part of public record. But it does exist in the collective memory of those who have endured the trauma of Rikers. It is that memory that the Rikers Public Memory Project seeks to activate.

Prior to being purchased by New York City in 1884, Rikers Island was owned by a prominent Dutch family, the Rikers (formerly Rycken). The family’s most well-known descendant, Richard Riker, creates an inextricable connection between the island and New York City’s legacy of slavery. During the early 19th century, Richard Riker served as a city recorder, one who managed the criminal courts. Local abolitionists outed him as a member of the Kidnapping Club, wherein he used his judicial power to facilitate the transport of black people to the south to be sold into slavery. Riker persecuted free black people without cause or due process under the auspices of the Fugitive Slave Act. Even before Rikers Island became a correctional facility, it was already haunted by the practice of stealing precious lives away from their families and communities in the name of the law. 

New York City purchased Rikers Island in 1882. To mark the occasion the New York Times published an article under the headline, “To Build a Bigger Jail.” It was no secret that the city intended to expand its capacity to incarcerate people (both so-called criminals and those who were considered mentally unfit). The jail facility was constructed by incarcerated laborers. It began housing its first detainees in 1932. Yes, this expensive and expansive jail complex opened during the early years of the Great Depression.

During its first decade, Rikers was declared cruel and inhumane by the Prison Association of New York (now known as the Correctional Association of New York) and the Federal Writers Project. In response to these conditions, the Bronx Supreme Court insisted that the correctional facility needed more cell blocks and even more guards in preparation for the influx of “undesirables” that would come with the World’s Fair. In fact, everything that those who are most impacted and on the front lines of the current resistance movement emphasize about the corruption that happens on Rikers today (cramped conditions, denial of basic human rights, corruption among officials, etc.) also happened during its first few years. Today’s organizers are also a part of a long legacy that began during Rikers’ first decade. In 1936, detainees protested artwork in the cafeteria that depicted a feast, a daily reminder of all that they were denied while incarcerated. 

It is important to note that Rikers is also an integral part of America’s cultural landscape. The role played by Rikers in our cultural history shapes what the rest of the world “knows” about the island and all but erases the existence of the millions of people who have entered its doors in

the last ninety years. In 1963, “Ryker’s Island” appeared in The Amazing Spider Man as the place where supervillains are detained. In recent years, Rikers continues to be a part of the Marvel Comic Universe as seen in television shows like Luke Cage, and Daredevil. It is similarly central to the Law and Order franchise as a place to house each episode’s antagonists. As a result, in popular discourse, the lines between reality and fiction as it relates to Rikers are blurred. 

The 1970s were characterized by a lot of resistance on the part of detainees concerning conditions inside and the emergence of more oppressive drug laws and mandatory minimums. The decade saw a number of hunger strikes, work stoppages, and other direct actions. Meanwhile, the complex was getting rapidly bigger and Rockefeller’s War on Drugs increased the city’s capacity to incarcerate once again. In 1971 the first jail for women on Rikers (which coincided with the closing of the Greenwich Village jail) opened along with the designation of a specific unit for lesbian, gay, and transgender detainees. Assata Shakur, who was detained at Rikers during this time, asserted that there were no criminals at the new corrections institution for women, only victims. “Most of the women are black and Puerto Rican..Most have been abused by men and all have been abused by ‘the system.’”

After five decades in existence, the first real conversations about closing Rikers began in the 1980s. Government officials argued that because the majority of people detained at Rikers were pre-trial (a practice that became the norm in 1974), it was inefficient to house people so far from the borough courts. The proposed plan was thwarted by New Yorkers who didn’t want their tax dollars to support “bad people” and strategic resistance from the Correction Officers Benevolent Association.  A century after the New York Times heralded the city’s ability to “build a bigger jail,” imprisoning those deemed unfit or unwanted in deplorable conditions far away from their families and communities had become a part of the fabric of New York City. It was, and remains, a part of who we are rather than a historical blemish that can somehow be redeemed through reform. 

The 1990s ushered in the era of “broken windows” policing, which further increased the city’s capacity to incarcerate and made the decade the most notorious in the jail’s history. At that time, Rikers was the single most occupied jail in the nation, and, at its peak, incarcerated upto 24,000 people daily. Corrections officers working on the island, however, felt that being detained in the most occupied jail in American wasn’t enough. In 1990, hundreds of corrections officers blocked the entrance to Rikers for a day and a half in protest of lenient treatment of detainees. This resulted in major resistance from those inside who were prevented from attending court hearings, receiving visitors, and getting meals at regular times. 

In the 2000s, the 24 hour news cycle provided ample time and space for the media to sensationalize the public discourse surrounding the island. Every year produced a new scandal: stolen artwork, private companies exploiting the economic vulnerability of detainees through illegal contracts with the Department of Corrections, illegal uses of force and strip searches, “stop and frisk” policies guaranteeing the detention of black and brown New Yorkers, bribes, drug smuggling, and “fight clubs” organized by corrections officers. 

Then, in 2015, the suicide of Kaleif Browder made national headlines following his release from Rikers two years earlier, after spending two years in solitary confinement. His family members, other impacted New Yorkers, and allies began calling for the closure of Rikers Island, and one year later, a group of directly impacted organizers and activists launched the #CLOSErikers campaign on the steps of New York City Hall. The campaign garnered the support of over 170 organizations and demanded that Mayor Bill de Blasio close New York City’s “Torture Island” while supporting the healing and rebuilding of the communities most harmed by the brutality of Rikers Island and the carceral system. A year later, Mayor de Blasio, and the Independent Commission on Criminal Justice Reform, convened by the City Council, voiced their support for the closure of Rikers. These leaders, those who are directly impacted and on the front lines, are the ones that this project holds itself accountable to. Without them, we would be unable to tell this story from the perspective of those who lived it rather than those of us on the outside.